Further to Julie's comments I would like to add that to make a hard
distinction between the able bodied and the disabled, is to make a mistake
similar to the false distinction between “naive” and “expert”. If we
represent human beings as points in a multidimensional space, whose axes
represent physical and mental characteristics, those who are categorised as
“disabled” simply have functionality’s on certain dimensions of this space
which differ from the average by an (often fairly arbitrary) amount. Every
human being has a set of abilities and characteristics, some which can be
described as “ordinary” and some, which are very obviously extra-ordinary.
People move about this space whilst growing up and eventually growing old.
Sickness, accident, lack of sleep or even plain drunkenness can
substantially change ones position in this space, and people also move about
this space from hour to hour if not minute to minute. In addition high
workload, stress and panic can produce profound changes in the physical and
cognitive abilities. A further parameter, which effects this
multidimensional space, is the environment. The majority of the lives of
most people are not spent sitting at an office desk. Even the best of
environments are not always stable and accident or emergency can make a
substantial difference.
----------------------
Ian Webb - Development Officer - DISinHE Centre
Department of Applied Computing - University of Dundee
Tel: 01382 345050 Fax: 01382 345509
[log in to unmask]
http://www.disinhe.ac.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Julie Livingston <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 06 July 1999 14:13
Subject: Re: Jobs for disabled people only (was Leeds job etc)
>
>
>I have been reading and learning quite a lot from the discussion which
>has ensued from this job posting -- and now feel compelled to respond to
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